That wasn’t just today. This EXACT same thing happened in 2009 when Steve Jobs let Phil Schiller introduce the follow-up to the 3G: the 3GS. And people had the exact same reactions (from engadget):

2009: “so basically every leak was a lie. i really wish they changed the design. we have known all this stuff for months now (video, autofocus camera)” -(Unverified)
2011: “All the rumors, all the leaks, all the time wasted….and it all boils down to this….” -yumax_phl

2009: “Oh, and Apple shares are down by $4 …..” -bluefootedboobies
2011: “apple stock down 5.4%…” -Lionboy

2009: “Well, like many others, I was waiting to see what Apple offered before deciding between Pre and iPhone. Luckily, Apple made that decision easy for me. I will be picking up my Pre tomorrow morning ” -metric
2011: “What happened to all the rumors about thinner body, bigger display? All those Chinese iPhone 5 case that didn’t fit iPhone 4? Is iPhone 5 right around the corner? I’ve been weighing between iPhone 4+ and Galaxy S2, waiting patiently for Apple to announce the new phone.. Looks like I’ll be ordering Galaxy :/” -ikoss

2009: “Looks like I’m getting a pre!” -R V
2011: “Nexus Prime ” -Joseph30

2009: “!?!?! WTF. Guess it’s a good thing I was on the fence about upgrading my 3G, cause it ain’t happening now.” -sford56
2011: “Yup. Not wasting my upgrade on this.. Love you, Apple, but I think #WP7 may be getting my business this fall.” -Jon Malone

2009: “My balls on yo face.” -(Unverified)
2011: “Hi, iPhone 4S. Go fuck your mother.” -Orris B.

The phone everyone kept comparing the 3GS to—the Palm Pre—sold about 400k units in 5 weeks. The iPhone 3GS sold 1,000,000 in its first weekend. And, suffice it to say, Apple’s stock was fine. The Pre made it 3 iterations before all WebOS devices were killed off by Palm in August.

Admittedly when Apple didn’t announce a new phone this last June and instead added the (super-delayed) white iPhone 4 and brought Verizon on-board, I had hoped that meant there actually would be an iPhone 5 this fall. But then where was the leaked info from China? The blurry pics of naked iPhone guts? Hidden model numbers in firmware? I quit hoping for a new design about a week ago.

But this looks to be the new release cycle: Complete re-design every two years with a processor (and OS) revision in between. And I’ll bet October is the new announcement/release month. I guess I’m OK with that. It’s kind of insane to ask for a total overhaul of a really nice design every year, especially when our contracts are 2-year agreements.

Long story short: if you’re not an Android (or Windows Phone) person and you still have a 3GS, get on this. If you’ve got an iPhone 4 already, you’re happy with it, and it’s working fine, just hold out a year for the iPhone 5. But make sure you’re ok waiting. Don’t be one of those people that suddenly needs/wants a new iPhone mid-cycle. That’ll mess up everything.

I’ve actually been thinking about Windows Phones lately. If someone made a nice looking handset with the Windows OS I might jump ship, but so far they all look like plasticky garbage.

What do you all think of the iPhone 4S? Total let-down or reasonable upgrade?

A lot of journalists seems to be pretty excited about iCloud, but I’m left wondering why I should care at all. iCloud allows you to seamlessly sync all your files (docs, photos, videos, music, etc) and accounts across all your devices. Photos and music won’t count toward the 5GB iCloud space limit. The cool thing (from an “Apple are a bunch of RIAA stooges” perspective) is that for $25 you can have music you DIDN’T get from iTunes “authorized” in the iCloud and it will be available for download from the iCloud to your iDevice.

Well guess what, with the upcoming iOS5 all my iDevices will sync wirelessly with my iMac every night anyway. Are you trying to tell me I’ll be out and about with my iPad, realize I forgot to put that Kids of 88 album on it that I got since last night and need it so desperately that I’d have to download it from my iCloud on the spot? Not to mention I didn’t get it from iTunes so I’ll have to pay $25 a year to authorize it?

What if I’m working on an iWorks document on my iPad and I immediately need to work on it on my iPhone? Isn’t it cool that they sync almost instantaneously to each other? No. Not at all. Who the hell needs that? I don’t even use iWorks. Or do any content creation on my iPad or iPhone.

And it syncs your mail. So what? Don’t we all have Exchange or at least IMAP email at this point? If you have gmail you’ve had email and contact syncing across all sorts of devices for ages.

Apple makes two weird assumptions:

• One, that people primarily use their iPads on the move.
• Two, that people actually want to create content on their iPads and iPhones.

Everyone I know uses their iPad mostly in their house. It’s the ultimate couch computer. If not there, then in bed. Or maybe in the kitchen. Some people bring it to the gym. But even in that case you don’t have away from your house for very long. You don’t leave it at work. Syncing every night isn’t a problem, especially now (well, this fall anyway) with wireless sync (which was a LONG time coming).

And as to content creation, who the hell wants to write long documents on their iPad? Or edit movies? Or create music? Those things are all cute diversions, but they’re all much more suited to actually sitting down with a real PC with a real OS (unless you’re Damon Albarn and then you can create an entire sub-par Gorillaz album on an iPad).

I think Apple is looking to create an ecosystem that allows for people to no longer have computers. You won’t need to have a central PC to sync your iDevices to. Which is nice, don’t get me wrong. But who the hell is that customer? It’s not me, that’s for sure. And not any time soon. Until the iCloud allows for streaming all my files and a hell of a lot more space than 5GB (seriously, I have single movies bigger than that), I just don’t care. Sorry Apple. When’s iPhone 5 coming out?

(thanks to Quellipsis, Wallerama, and CCap for the email thread today)

I love my iPhone but God damn I am sick of it. Apple’s done nothing interesting with it since it came out. Even the app store was a big so-what to anyone rolling with a jail-broken phone and Cydia. This why I’m so glad to finally see a LEGITIMATE challenger show it’s face. Windows Phone 7 Series (GREAT name guys *insert sarcasm mark*) looks to finally spice things up. I love the Zune HD interface so I’m glad to see it perfectly intact here. Wireless syncing to the cloud. Homescreen “tiles” that are big and beautiful. Social media baked-in to the OS, not as some independent, non-multitasking app. Really cool UI design elements. If we get some really good hardware backing this up (metal phones with glass screens, please) and good battery life (Apple’s push notifications KILL me) then I think I can put my iPhone in my cell-phone graveyard and wait for Apple to innovate again.

I love the smell of competition in the morning. You go Microsoft.

Read all about it at Giz and be sure to watch the video below and cry over how fucking static and boring your iPhone is.

Jobs’ tone was borderline apologetic as he started the press conference with a “mea culpa” regarding the recently announced iPad, going so far as to admit to being “stoned as a motherfucker” when he thought it up back in the early ’80s with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Jobs shows an old press photo of him, Wozniak and the "iBong."

Jobs proceeded to delight and dazzle the gathered bloggers and industry insiders with a newer, smaller version of the device. “A lot of people said that the iPad was too big. That it didn’t have a camera. That you couldn’t make calls. That it didn’t have GPS. That it wasn’t widescreen. Well we heard you. And today we are proud to announce the iPad 3Gs.”

Jobs poses with the new dimunitive device.

“It’s 85% smaller than the iPad and yet retains almost 100% of the functionality. We think it’s pretty amazing.” Jobs then continued to praise the device as “revolutionary,” “game-changing,” “beautiful,” and even went so far as to call the iPad 3Gs “magical” a record-breaking 14 times.

The "s" stands for "Speed," "Small," and "Simple," Jobs said.

Among the new features are a phone, a GPS which kind of works like a real GPS if you have someone with you to read out intersections and upcoming turns, a 3 megapixel camera, a widescreen, and more.

Press material from Apple.

After announcing the new device and demoing some of its features Jobs dropped another bomb on the audience. “With the first generation iPad releasing in less than a month, we know you’re going to be curious when the second generation iPad is coming out. Well I can tell you today that it is available right now at all Apple and AT&T stores.”

The iPad 3Gs will mark the first time in consumer electronics history that the second generation of a product actually beats the first iteration to the market.

The Twitterverse lit up with buzz and speculation. Self-confessed Apple-addict John Mayer tweeted, “Buying iPad 2G ASAP. Not sure what it is or looks like but sure it will change everything!!!!!1111!!!” while Walt Mossberg tweeted simply, “Just came.”

John Mayer weighs in via Twitter.

The press conference ended with Bono, The Edge, Steven Tyler, Jason Mraz, Mary J. Blige, Lil Wayne, Stevie Nicks, Jimmy Page, and Ringo Starr performing an acoustic version of the Joe Esposito classic “You’re The Best Around” from The Karate Kid Part 1. A live version of the performance is available on iTunes for $.99 or fans can purchase a DRM-free version for $13.99 that includes stick-figure artwork by Ringo Starr and a music video of the song set to video of the artists using the new iPad. Proceeds go directly to Haiti Relief Relief, a non-profit created to provide support services to support services in Haiti.

Vegan cakes in the shape of the Apple logo were served to press and fans afterwards, who took the opportunity to compare MacBooks and congratulate one another.

Press and excited fans gather around the new iPad while a mustachioed Apple employee stands guard, looks down on them.

Well, speculation mostly, but the iPhone design that this basically cops has become increasingly stale as well. And that’s to say nothing of what the competition’s up to. Whereas the iPhone felt light years ahead of everyone else (sorry LG Prada), the iPad really does just look like a giant iPhone, which is f**king ridiculous. That’s why it’s a big, huge…

Why it sucks:

• The name. iPad. Lots of feminine product jokes going around but to me it’s just state and flat. What’s so exciting about a pad?
• That Bezel is f**king ABSURD. I know you have to have somewhere to hold it, but come on.
• No Flash. No flash means no flash games. No Hulu. No embedded videos that you enjoy watching on your favorite blogs.
• That homescreen. Are they joking? Are they trying to get people to call it a giant iPod touch (which they DEFINITELY are)? Look how strangely spaced out the icons are, and how small they are. Talk about not taking advantage of your screen real estate.
• No file management. Want to share files with your friends? Sorry. Want to set up a share folder so you can just shoot files back and forth between your main computer and your tablet? Nope. You’ll only be able to transfer file types that iTunes recognizes and allows. What about comics or books people have downloaded or purchased outside iTunes? Will these even be supported?
• No multitasking. Say you’re playing a game and hear the email chime. You’ll have to exit, launch email, read email, exit email, launch game. Watching a movie and want to IM with a friend or read some email while you do it? Can’t.
• AT&T for the 3G carrier. Dude. How much more bogged down can their network get? It already sucks. I’m counting down the days until I can out. The only surprise was (to my mind) a somewhat reasonable data plan.
• One port. No USB. No memory cards. No VGA or HDMI out. You have to buy an adapter (which I’m sure Apple will gladly sell you) to hook ANYTHING up to your iPad. Elegant solution there.

The real problem is that Apple hasn’t shown a lot of innovation lately. The iPhone was revolutionary, no doubt. What an exciting Apple event. It’s like the iPhone did so much more than anything else out at the time that the shortcomings were easily overlooked. So what’s Apple done since then? Uh, nothing really. They added features to the phone over the course of 3 generations that were obvious and easily accomplished the first time out–3G, copy and paste, the app store. The design got tweaked for the 2nd Gen, which was nice. 3rd Gen had ZERO cosmetic changes. Huge bummer. And now the iPad, which looks just like a big iPhone (although sexily thin) and doesn’t really do much else.

Here’s what I’d really want to see and what I’m hoping someone else pulls off (The HP Slate, The MSI Tablet, etc):

• Easy pairing and file sharing. When I get close to another iPad, say within a foot, there should be an option to link with this other iPad, and then files can be flicked from one screen to the other, like a large extended display. The second iPad can then choose to save the files or just toss them. Likewise, there should be an Explorer/Finder utility to easily search for networked and other shared drives. Folders should be easily created and moved. This is supposed to be a step up from a smart phone, remember?
• Less bezel, please. It doesn’t need to be as large as it is. It really ruins the looks of the device.
• 16:9 screen.
• Full OS. Feel free to make changes to the look and UI, but please let there be a full OS on this thing. If netbooks can do it and get 7+ hours of battery life, then take the next step and maintain battery life while revolutionizing the form factor.
• The internet JUST like it is on my computer. This means any browser I want. Flash support. Etc. If it slows down my computer I’ll deal with the consequences.

2 things I really want but aren’t happening any time soon:

• No bezel. I’m not sure how you’d deal with erroneous presses on the touch surface, but a device with no bezels and as thin as the iPad would be too sexy for me to pass up. Even if it had the EXACT same functionality as the iPad.
• Wacom technology built it. Switch from multi-touch interface to pressure-sensitive pen-input so you can use your tablet as a fully-functional drawing tablet.

I’m really hoping someone like Microsoft takes advantage of Apple’s huge disappointment and hops into the hardware game. They’ve been pushing their Surface for so long I wonder if they realize they were just making giant tablets. Shrink that down and make it mobile. Windows 7 supposedly has some good multi-touch tech baked right in. Take advantage. One of the only MP3 players that’s caught my eye lately is the Zune HD. It’s the perfect anti-iPod. Get that design team to whip up a tablet stat. I’ll gladly jump back into Windows if they can get all the features people are asking for into a tablet with good battery life. Just make this: